Analysis

Senate Bill Not Seen As Death Knell For Skinny Label Suits

By Ryan Davis

A Senate bill aiming to protect generic-drug makers from patent suits when using so-called skinny labels could give the law more clarity if passed, but it likely wouldn't halt such cases since they involve issues that are more complex than lawmakers may realize, attorneys say.

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Justices Urged To Review Souvenir Store's TM Fraud Case

By Theresa Schliep

A Florida souvenir store chain has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to consider its challenge to a Second Circuit decision foreclosing its arguments that a bankrupt beachwear company fraudulently procured a trademark registration to secure a $3.5 million settlement in yearslong litigation between the competitors.

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Fed. Circ. Partly Revives Steuben's Win In $38M IP Trial

By Dani Kass

The Federal Circuit largely revived Steuben Foods' infringement victory from a jury trial on Friday, in an opinion that also delved into the status of the rarely used reverse doctrine of equivalents.

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Fed. Circ. Upholds Intel PTAB Win In Qualcomm Fight

By Adam Lidgett

The Federal Circuit said Friday it won't undo a Patent Trial and Appeal Board decision that invalidated several claims of a Qualcomm Inc. patent it had previously upheld, backing the board's latest claim construction in favor of Intel.

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Shyamalan, Apple Cleared Of Copyright Infringement By Jury

By Craig Clough

A California federal jury on Friday delivered M. Night Shyamalan from a real-life Hollywood nightmare when it cleared the director and others of stealing an independent filmmaker's work for his Apple TV+ show "Servant."

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Chinese Co. Rips Micron's 'Speculative' Fear Of Sharing Code

By Hailey Konnath

Yangtze Memory Technologies on Friday urged the Federal Circuit to leave in place a district court's ruling requiring rival Micron Technology Inc. to turn over its source code in a flash memory chip patent dispute, arguing that Micron's security concerns "are entirely speculative."

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Intellectual Property Group Of The Year: Kirkland

By Theresa Schliep

Kirkland & Ellis LLP attorneys worked some of the most notable intellectual property cases last year, including fighting off a sprawling $6 billion patent case against Intel Corp. and successfully defending a sports video game maker against copyright claims by a tattoo artist, earning the firm a place among the 2024 Law360 Intellectual Property Groups of the Year.

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Deere Loses Fed. Circ. Bid To Revive Seeding Patent Fight

By Adam Lidgett

The Federal Circuit on Friday shot down John Deere's appeal of its loss at the lower court in a case where a jury found that a rival's SpeedTube products didn't infringe a pair of patents, affirming a lower court's denial of the farming equipment giant's bid for a new trial.

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Colgate Gets PTAB To Ax Travel Toothbrush Patent Claims

By Adam Lidgett

The Patent Trial and Appeal Board has found that Colgate-Palmolive was able to show that all the challenged claims of a patent on a toothbrush preloaded with toothpaste are invalid as obvious based on earlier inventions.

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Biotech Co. Defends Antitrust Counterclaims Against Rival

By Jared Foretek

Biotech company Zymo Research Corp. is defending its claims that German diagnostic competitor Qiagen GmbH's infringement suit is nothing more than an attempt to discredit a competitor, saying Zymo offered to prove it wasn't ripping off Qiagen's tech, only to have Qiagen bury "its head in the sand" and file suit.

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DOJ Seeks End Of SpaceX Challenge To Immigrant Bias Case

By Patrick Hoff

A Texas federal judge on Friday paused a SpaceX lawsuit challenging administrative proceedings against the aeronautics company over its refusal to hire refugees and asylees, after the U.S. Department of Justice said it was considering ways to resolve the case.

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UK Litigation Roundup: Here's What You Missed In London

By Max Austin

This past week in London has seen Axa Insurance and Admiral face a claim from a former lawyer recently exposed for personal injury fraud, the owner of Reading Football Club sue a prospective buyer and mobile network Lycamobile tackle action by Spanish network Yogio. Here, Law360 looks at these and other new claims in the U.K.

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SAP Seeks Full 9th Circ. Rehearing Of Revived Tying Suit

By Jared Foretek

German software giant SAP is asking the Ninth Circuit to reconsider its revival of data analytics company Teradata's trade secrets and tying suit against it, saying the panel wrongly applied per se antitrust treatment to a "highly innovative software market."

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Anschutz Gets Trade Secrets Trial Delayed Amid Sale Dispute

By Rachel Scharf

A Colorado state judge on Friday delayed an upcoming trial in a trade secrets suit brought by Anschutz Exploration Corp., giving the parties more time to deal with a discovery fight over a recent sale that left the jurist "totally dumbfounded" and "furious" at a Denver oil prospector earlier this week.

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Dow Argues Tech Firm's IP Suit Over Software Is Time-Barred

By Corey Rothauser

The Dow Chemical Co. has urged an Ohio federal judge to rule in its favor in a dispute over proprietary polyethylene manufacturing software, arguing that ControlSoft Inc.'s suit ignores their more than 20-year business relationship and that the technology firm waited too long to bring trade secrets and copyright infringement claims.

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Finnegan Adds Quinn Emanuel UPC Pro In Munich

By Hanna Vioque

Finnegan Henderson Farabow Garrett & Dunner LLP has added a new IP partner to its Munich office with particular expertise in front of the nascent Unified Patent Court, marking its fifth IP partner hire.

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Language Services Biz Launches IP Division For Int'l Patents

By Ashish Sareen

A London-based translation services provider has begun rolling out a new division that aims to use artificial intelligence technology to help companies secure patents worldwide and manage their global patent portfolios.

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Lessons From The Pharma Industry On Patent Cliffs

In the next five years, patents for drugs that have generated billions in global sales are set to expire, and companies that view this imminent patent cliff as an opportunity for strategic renewal rather than a challenge will be best positioned to maintain market leadership, says Keegan Caldwell at Caldwell Law.

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FTC Report On AI Sector Illuminates Future Enforcement

The Federal Trade Commission's report on cloud service providers and their partnerships with developers of artificial intelligence's large language models suggests that the agency will move to rein in Big Tech with antitrust enforcement to protect startups, say attorneys at Squire Patton.

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Artfully Conceding Liability Can Offer Defendants 3 Benefits

In the rare case that a company makes the strategic decision to admit liability, it’s important to do so clearly and consistently in order to benefit from the various forms of armor that come from an honest acknowledgment, says Ken Broda-Bahm at Persuasion Strategies.

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Mentorship Resolutions For The New Year

Attorneys tend to focus on personal achievements or career milestones when they set yearly goals, but one important area often gets overlooked in this process — mentoring relationships, which are some of the most effective tools for professional growth, say Kelly Galligan at Rutan & Tucker and Andra Greene at Phillips ADR.

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Companies Risk White House Wrath By Keeping DEI Programs

By Sarah Jarvis

For companies pushing forward with their diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives amid a torrent of attacks from President Donald Trump and his allies, there are myriad potential risks ahead — and murky questions about the legal parameters of Trump's anti-DEI agenda.

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Law Students Scramble As Federal Gov't Yanks Job Offers

By Alison Knezevich

Law students across the country are scrambling to figure out their next steps after a range of federal agencies yanked job and internship offers this week because of the new hiring freeze imposed by the Trump administration.

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Mass Tort Atty Files Ch. 11 Owing $202M To Litigation Funders

By Hilary Russ

A Houston plaintiffs attorney has filed for personal Chapter 11 protection with more than $202 million of litigation funding liabilities, according to his petition in the Southern District of Texas.

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Feud Heats Up Over Estate Of Wife Killed By Ex-BigLaw Atty

By Emily Johnson

The godson of a Georgia woman killed by her husband, former Fisher Phillips partner Claud "Tex" McIver, has said her cousins shouldn't get proceeds from a settlement of an underlying wrongful death suit, calling them "strangers" to her and claiming "the redistributive windfall" they're asking for "has no place in Georgia law."

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Boston Firm Says IT Vendor Holding Computers 'Hostage'

By Julie Manganis

Boston-based law firm Melick & Porter LLP says a company it hired to manage its information technology is now holding its computer network and data "hostage" by refusing to cooperate with the transition to a new vendor unless Melick pays it $380,000.

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In Case You Missed It: Hottest Firms And Stories On Law360

For those who missed out, here's a look back at the law firms, stories and expert analyses that generated the most buzz on Law360 last week.

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Law360's Legal Lions Of The Week

By Kevin Penton

Phillips Black Inc., Ridley McGreevy & Winocur PC and King & Spalding LLP lead this week's edition of Law360 Legal Lions, after the U.S. Supreme Court revived claims from a woman on death row in Oklahoma that prosecutors unfairly sex-shamed her and relied on gender-based stereotypes to convince a jury that she had killed her estranged husband for insurance money.

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GC Cheat Sheet: The Hottest Corporate News Of The Week

By Sue Reisinger

A new Law360 Pulse survey shows that more than 90% of in-house counsel have no regrets about their decisions to join companies. In litigation stemming from Purdue Pharma's sales of OxyContin that fueled the opioid crisis, the Sackler family would lose control of Purdue and pay $6.5 billion in the latest proposed settlement. These are some of the stories in corporate legal news you may have missed in the past week.​

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